Wednesday

Pics from Europe

Hey all! Here's my pics from Europe. Enjoy! The trip was much too short and busy, but I had a great time. Taiko played 10 concerts in 4 days! I Met a lot of good people in Chamonix, enjoyed a boat tour through the canals of Amsterdam and went to the Van Gogh museum. Geneva is the world's most international city with almost 50% of the population foreigners. I rode a cable car to 3800 meters up Aguille Du Midi, and got a great view of Mont-Blanc, the Alps' highest mountain, which looks over Chamonix, and participated in what is to date, probably the world's highest elevation taiko performance there. I visited Martigny, Switzerland and performed with the group in front of over 500 locals gathered for their Fall festival. I ate French bread, cheese, chocolate, and of course, loved the wine. The wine was so good! Mostly Bordeaux at local prices. For gifts I bought T-shirts, swiss army knives, and ... um ...wine. Will I go back? Hmm...Sure. Mont-Blanc would be fun to climb, and the skiing in winter, and rock climbing in the summer in Chamonix is some of the best in the world, not to mention mountain biking. The French people I met were all extraordinarily kind, funny, and interesting people. Besides, there is so much more to see and do. After all, it is Europe...

Going through all my photos, these are what I feel were the best and most memorable shots of the trip!


A crisp and cold morning in Amsterdam behind our hotel. My first morning in Europe. Amsterdam is hardly ever clear...we were lucky, it was a beautiful day.


I was very impressed by the bike culture of Amesterdam. Between the road and the sidewalk, there is a another 2 lane road system reserved only for bikes, which runs through the entire city.


The old buildings of Amsterdam all have beams sticking out of their top floors so that residents can pulley furniture into the building. The old staircases were made too narrow and steep to accommodate large furniture. ALL the buildings have these pulley beams. Also, the ground in Amsterdam, and most of the Netherlands is very soft up to 20 meters deep. Buildings lean to and fro, and floors are slanted. Nothing is plum. But I was told that most doors still open and close smoothly.


At lake Leman in Geneva. Unfortunately I were only able to stay for one night, and I didn't get to see much of this very international city that is home to the UN, WTO, and Red Cross. Even though it was shut down for repairs, I also REALLY wanted to go check out the new "Large Hadron Collider", the world's largest proton accelerator that was just built and run successfully for the first time this September in Geneva.


The first of many taiko performances started the day after arrival in Chamonix. Pictured here is our concert in Martigny, Switzerland.


A view from the top of Aguille Du Midi, which includes the great Matterhorn in the distant Swiss Alps.




Perhaps the world's first taiko performance under Mont-Blanc.

However, I posted these to give you only a small taste. Take a look at the rest of my best pictures from Europe here, at my online photo album. Then click "Slideshow" in the upper right corner to get the full effect. (once the slideshow is running, it also helps to press "info on" in the top center).

If that wasn't enough, I've also created a photo album with my best shots from 2008 here.

Sante!

1 Comments:

Blogger Daryl-Hunter said...

Looks like you are having a blast Andy - Carry On!

6:35 AM  

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